


Dragonheart

by clowsan



Series: Once Upon A Time [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-02-18 09:02:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2342753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clowsan/pseuds/clowsan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They had crowned her the Queen of Love and Beauty. It was supposed to be a great honor as she had been declared the most beautiful maiden in all the lands. But none of the girls in the kingdom wanted the winter rose crown, especially not when the dragon came.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dragonheart

**Author's Note:**

> Cross posted from tumblr. This one was my first Jon and Sansa. I hope to write more about them. Unbeta'd

They had crowned her the Queen of Love and Beauty. It was supposed to be a great honor as she had been declared the most beautiful maiden in all the lands. But none of the girls in the kingdom wanted the winter rose crown, especially not when the dragon came. 

She knew her siblings were back in their village trying to conjure up ways to save her. She prayed they were not foolish enough to do anything but plan. Their family did not need anymore tragedies. Not when their Lord Father passed. Their mother did not need to lose anymore children.

Tethered to a pole atop the seventh jeweled hill, Sansa wondered if this was how his Aunt Lyanna had felt when she had been crowned. _Chosen_. _Sacrificed_. They had thought she would be the last Queen of Love and Beauty for the dragon disappeared for almost two decades but then one day it was seen again, circling the Icy Mountain. 

She heard the unmistakable sound of leathery wings from a distance and her heart began to thud against her ribs. She steeled herself.This was for her family so they might live full lives.  _I am a Stark_. She thought. _I can be brave_.

She closed her eyes as the dragon swooped down and snatched her up with its claws.

*

He had not always been like this creature. Jon remembered a time when he was human with hands and legs. He remembered a time when he had a voice that did not consist of growls and roars and snarls. 

He had lived in a small village then with his Pa and Mam. Pa was a apothecary and his Mam would help him with herbs and flowers from her garden. He recalled the stories his Mam would tell him about where she was born under the shadow of the Icy Mountain, a foreign concept in the humid forest of the South, and his Pa would tell him about magical creatures that once roamed the land. But his favorite was the story about the Queen who was chosen who saved a dragon from his loneliness with true love’s first. It had always been knights who did the saving, the change was quite welcomed. 

They were happy, the three of them. 

Until a sickness claimed Mam after his twelfth name day and his Pa almost immediately followed. And there was just him. His Pa made him promise that he would not stay in the house. That he would move faraway from their village, away from the sickness, as he could. 

He packed his small belongings after he buried his parents and headed north. Perhaps he could find his mother’s kin under the shadow of the Icy Mountain.

He was six and ten when it happened. He had been sleeping in a cave as he wont to do when he was between towns and village. His body had been running a fever ever since his name day and he curled himself under his furs for comfort and warmth. He ached everywhere and the agony followed him into his restless sleep. 

He thought he would die but once he opened his eyes, he found that he was larger than he should be. The cave suddenly was cramp. He had black scales where skin should have been and two massive black wings instead of hands.

It took him a long time to get used to his new body. A year and a half to be exact. He had been confused the first months. Why did this happen to him and such. But then he remembered his Pa’s stories. The ones Jon had dismissed as children’s tales. Humans that turned to dragons. _Was that what happened to me?_ He thought. 

He needed to find out how to become human again and he had this feeling in his gut that he would find the answers in the Icy Mountain. So he learned how to use his wings and off he flew. 

He tried to limit his flying during the nights. He had learned his lesson quickly that one time he passed a village during the day. The people were in panic and started trying to shoot him down. He made an exception when he caught sight of the Icy Mountain. He pressed on even when the sun broke the horizon.

He had not been disappointed when he arrived and found a cave that he looked like it had been inhabited before. There were writings on the walls. Symbols and directions. Most of them needed the hands of a human to follow. Rituals, he thought. He also discovered a huge pile of gold at the back and he learned that most of the spells required the precious metal to work.

Jon had been in the cave  for a sennight when he caught sight of her. It was night time and the moon gave off a bit of light. He had been hunting for food and she was tied to a pole. She was a vision with her long red hair. Her skin was almost translucent when a stray of moonlight hit her. 

Anger burned inside of him. _Who would leave an innocent girl bound to a pole like that?  No matter. I would save her_. He thought as he swooped down and freed her. He felt proud and very much a hero as he soared up to the skies.

*

Sansa had never been this high in her whole life.

In her dreams she had been flying but that was nothing compared to the real thing which is both exhilarating and frightening. The jeweled hills twinkled like stars and the forest looked like a plush carpet as they went up until they all disappeared under a sea of clouds. 

If this was the last thing she would do before she died then it was fine for how many people could boast about seeing the land from the sky. She felt her heart slow its beating to what was normal. There was something soothing about the way she was rocked with each powerful beat of the dragon’s wings. 

But the reality of her situation found her again when they began to descend. The Icy Mountain was upon them. The Dragon’s claws tightened as they entered a cave and Sansa thought that it was the end. That it would tear her into strips before it devoured her.

It did not. 

Instead it gently dropped her on the ground. Its claw nicked her arm and she clutched the injury as she stood up. She was so terrified that it took her a moment to realize that the dragon was not making any motion to eat her or otherwise. Perhaps it wanted her to run. To toy with her before like hunters did with their prey. 

She refused to do that. She was a Stark and she would die with honor. Blood was rushing to her ears and that she did not immediately hear a voice or even notice that the voice was speaking to her.

"…Bleeding." 

She glanced up, confused and was surprised to see the same confusion marring the dragon’s face. She never thought a dragon could look baffled but then she never saw a dragon this up close before. 

"You… you can speak?" She asked, haltingly. Her body still shook in fear.

"I… that is actually a recent development." The dragon replied. "I have never been able to talk in this form before."

Sansa’s eyebrows furrowed. She was even more puzzled. 

"Perhaps it was your blood. Are you a witch? Is that why you are tethered to that pole?" 

"I am no witch!" She exclaimed, outraged. 

It looked chastised. “Forgive me. It had been long since I had company. What I want to say is that there is magic in your blood. Perhaps you can help me get back to my human form.”

"That is all the blood you are getting from me." Sansa answered, firmly.

The dragon shook his head. making a cloud of dirt swirl around them. “No, no. You misunderstand me. There are rituals on the walls of this cave. I reckoned one of them could help me but I could not do much with these wings. You have hands. Also I can pay you with gold."

Sansa was at war with herself. She should just demand that the dragon bring her back to her village but if what it said was true then it was a human trapped in this form. Her late father had taught her to help those in dire need and her family needed the gold. Life had been hard since her father died.

"What is your name?" She asked.

"Jon." The beast replied, with an eager gleam in his gray eyes. "I can even bring you home once we find a way."

She did not have any reasons to trust this dragon but it was not like she had much of a choice. The path down the mountain was perilous. Full of wolves and wild animals with no food and freezing temperature.

"I am Sansa. You have my services."

*

Jon felt guilty about keeping Sansa here. He knew he did not give her much of a choice but he was desperate to be human again. If Sansa resented him, she did not give much indication.

She was a hard worker and followed directions to the dot. They already tested three rituals and none worked. She was currently working on the fourth and it had only been a fortnight. He tried not to be hurt that she wanted to get out of the cave as soon as possible because who would want to be stuck with a dragon. 

He blamed it to the loneliness of not having any company for the past couple of years. Sansa's silent presence was a welcome and he liked watching her work. Often he found himself wanting to talk to her about her life in the village but he did not know how to start.

He had been hunting for their meal when he spotted the hot spring. His first thought was Sansa. She would appreciate a hot bath. So he flew back to his cave. 

She had been dubious when he said that he had something to show her but she finally gave him the benefit of the doubt and climbed on his back. He liked how she felt atop of him. How her arms spanned his neck.

He was right. She had been delighted by the hot spring and she even graced him with a grateful smile. He made it a mission to give her small little trinkets whenever he went our of the cave. A bit of pine needles for her sleeping area, bushes of winter roses he had painstakingly picked and branches of wild berries that he noticed she liked. 

She responded well to his gifts. She talked about her family and her village. He told her of his Mam and Pa. The days and weeks passed swiftly and they fell into a routine. It was comfortable  and it reminded Jon of his life when his parents were still alive. 

For a time, he was happy again

Until he smelled smoke.

*

There had been a time in Sansa's life when all that was important was someone's outer appearance. She had been young and naive, never looking deeper than the skin. Her father had warned her about the evil that lurked behind a pretty face but she did not listen.

So when Joffrey came to court her, she had wanted nothing more than to marry him. He had been everything she had dreamed her husband would be. Charming and fair and tall. 

But it all came to a crashing end when her father died and their family fortune was seized and squandered by the king on false accusations of treason. Joffrey was quick to put her aside for a richer bride and he was the first to mock her family's suddenly lower station. 

 _Jon won't be like that_. The thought came unbidden. Jon, the dragon, no the enchanted man would be kind, gentle and brave. Sansa had seen it in the months that they had been together. His tenderness despite of his fearsome size and scales. 

Everyday she spent in this cave working with Jon the more she felt comfortable. She still missed her family but not in that desperate way that she did when she first got here. Now she truly wanted to help Jon regain his human body. 

If she had stopped and thought about, a small part of her knew it would not last. Nothing that made her happy ever did.

*

Jon would have been impressed of the villager's daring if not for the half a dozen harpoons that pierced his chest and neck. Sansa tried to stop them but it was too late.

Sansa chanted his name like a prayer as she tried to pull out the metal projectiles from his body. They did not budge but that did not stop her.

"It's okay sweet girl." He said, or rather tried to say. It was more a gurgle of words and his black blood when it came out of his snout. 

"Stupid boy! Dragon boy!" She choked out between her sobs. "How can it be okay when you're like this." She beat her fists against his sides. "This is all my fault. I should have sent them a message. I should have. Oh Jon..."

What Jon would not do to have hands now and wipe those tears. The pain from his body felt nothing to her pain for him. Her hurt was his hurt. 

"You are loved, Sansa. Could not blame your siblings." He said haltingly. Blood was filling his lungs. It was getting difficult to talk. "Won't you smile for me, dearest?"

She looked at him through tears and she must have seen how his time was not long. She wiped her eyes and mustered a bright smile. His brave Sansa. He felt her gentle hands on his cheek. 

"You are loved as well, Jon." She whispered before she placed a tender kiss on face.

It was last he heard before darkness engulfed him.

*

Sansa had read it on the cave's walls before. True Love's Kiss. She had not paid it much attention for it will only work if both person shared the feeling. But now she felt the true magic.

There was a gladness in her heart when a bright light suddenly surrounded Jon. She covered her eyes and did not dare look until the last vestige of magic was gone and there stood a young man. A tall, pale, dark haired man in the tattered remains of what used to be clothes. 

She stepped forward. "Jon..." She called. 

"True love's kiss." He murmured. Just like his Mam used to tell him in her stories.

She nodded before she traced his face and ran a hand through his curls. He breathed in her scent before he smiled. 

"Something for the fair lady who rescued me." He said as he cupped her cheek and drew her in a deep kiss. 


End file.
